What I Have Learned With Over 18 Years of Infertility

2001 was a year of change.

After having spent my childhood and teenage years in the same private school, with the same people, I was now in a different environment: first year of university. Being naturally an introvert and having felt different (due to my lack of periods) throughout school, going through school was hard. And because it was the same people and environment for over a decade, I felt I couldn’t change who I was. But now, at 18 years of age, at university, I had this opportunity to meet new people and maybe choose to be a bit different, more extrovert.

But little did I know what 2001 was about to bring me…

For the last year I had had investigations, multiple medical examinations, taking tablets, changed diet to see if my periods would start. But it was only when I had a laparoscopy – a surgical procedure where a camera is put inside our abdomen- that I was told I didn’t have a uterus and the top part of my vagina. Followed by the most surreal experience of undergoing further, more invasive surgery – 4 hours, several surgeons, general and epidural anaesthesia, significant blood loss, 10 days in a hospital bed and several months of wearing a dildo 24/7 – to create a vagina. 

This happened on the 11 June 2019. 

So this day, every year, I celebrate.

I had surgery so I could feel normal, so I could fit in, be a woman. But as years have gone by, I learned womanhood is not defined by our reproductive organs.

So when I celebrate, I don’t do it because I feel ‘normal’. I do it because I am different.

It was this difference and challenge that made me say “If I can overcome this, there is nothing in life I won’t be able to accomplish”. And it was precisely this commitment that made me achieve so much in a short period of time in my life. It’s the driving force for everything I do.

So, if you are going through infertility, here’s a few things I have learned for over 18 years and have helped me:

• I am a woman and I am complete just as I am. I love myself and I am deserving of love. Everyone is different, there isn’t such thing as ’normal’.
• Infertility will always be a part of me, and triggers will come from time to time. I am getting better at recognising them and managing them. It is possible to learn how to cope.
• Everyone goes through challenges, these may not be visible and someone you know may be suffering right now. The pain of infertility is invisible to the eye of others.
• There isn’t a one size fits all solution in infertility. What is a solution for someone, is not a solution for someone else. I am at peace with not having a baby but know we may change our minds in the future. For now, I am at peace with my core family that involves my husband Frank and our puppy Sammy and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
• I have learned to enjoy other aspects of life and live very happy life. I have transformed a very painful circumstance into something positive, by helping others in their journeys. This brings meaning to my life.
• Infertility has challenged who I was but it also invited me to choose who I want to be. This is a journey of self discovering, of unbecoming all the things society has told me I should be, so I can finally be more myself. And for that I am grateful.

With Love,

Andreia

Andreia Trigo RN BSc MSc is the founder of inFertile Life and of the Enhanced Fertility Programme, multi-awarded nurse consultant, fertility coach, author and TEDx speaker.  Combining her fourteen-year medical experience, CBT, NLP and her own eighteen-year infertility journey, she has developed unique strategies to help people undergoing similar challenges achieve their reproductive goals. The Enhanced Fertility Programme is helping people worldwide and has been awarded Best Innovation in Business 2018 and E-Business of 2018.